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THE VERBENA PEOPLE'S PRAYER AND THE "WIN 
" THE WAR FOR PERMANENT PEACE'^ 
CONVENTION. 



•/ 



With the compliments of 

Samxjel B, Clarke 

56 Wall Street, Ni^w York City 



X 



THE VERBENA PEOPLE'S PRAYER AND THE "WIN 

THE WAR FOR PERMANENT PEACE" 

CONVENTION. 



The convention. 

The League to Enforce Peace, whose president is Mr. 
Taft, whose executive committee's chairman is Mr. A. 
Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard University, and 
whose letter-paper displays a long printed membership list 
of deservedly eminent and influential men and women, has 
called a convention to be held in Philadelphia May 16-18 
next. The tentative program shows that at the morning, 
afternoon and evening sessions on Thursday, May 16, there 
are to be a keynote address and discussions of what we are 
fighting against and of what democracy would face if it 
should lose the tight; that on Friday, May 17, there are to 
be discussions of the preparation for a league of nations, 
and of the machinery and uses of such a league ; and that 
at the morning session on Saturday, May 18, there are to 
be addresses on a program of action for winning the war 
and a lasting peace; that at the afternoon session there 
will probably be present a large body of Governors consid- 
ering what the several states of the Union may do toward 
stirring the popular mind to the supreme sacrifice for win- 
ning this war and the twin task of preventing another war ; 
and that in the evening there is to be an allied war dinner 
attended by representatives of the allied nations associated 
with us in the war. By permission, one of the invitations 
to attend the convention is set forth here ;— - 



"March 27, 1918. 
Suiniiel B. Clarke, Esq., 
New York City. 

Dear Sir: 

We want your help in a convention on 'Win the War 
for Permanent Peace' that the League to Enforce Peace is 
calling in Philadelphia from Thursday to Saturday, May 
16th-18th, and send you this advance announcement in the 
hope that you will arrange to attend. 

The object of the convention is to sustain the determina- 
tion of our people to fight until Prussian militarism has 
been defeated, confirm opposition to a premature peace, 
and to focus attention on the only advantage the American 
people are hoping to gain from the war, — a permanent 
I)eace guaranteed by a League of Nations. 

A tentative program is enclosed on which we invite 
your suggestions. 

Very truly yours, 

J. Card. Gibbons Wm. H. Taft 

John Sharp Wh^liaris Frances F. Cleveland Preston 

Saml. Gompers Alton B. Parker 

Anna H. Shaw A. Lawrence Lowell 

Eva Perry Moore Henry van Dyke 

Edward A. Filene John Mitchell 

Cyrus H. K. Curtis E. T. Meredith." 

IL 

Answer to the invitation. 

"April 3, 1918. 
Mr. William H. Short, 

Secretary, League to Enforce Peace, 
70 Fifth Avenue, 
New York City. 

Dear Sir : 

Truly, I feel much honored by the invitation which you 
have sent me from Cardinal Gibbons, Mr. Taft and others 



to attend the 'Win the War for Permanent Peace' Con- 
vention which the league has called to be held in Philadel- 
phia next month, and to make suggestions on the tentative 
program for the Convention proceedings. 

I approve heartily the tentative program. The prin- 
cipal suggestion which I have to make is that the Con- 
vention's formal action shall be limited to four resolu- 
tions ; — 

First: Carthago non est delenda! The several peo- 
ples of Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and the 
American Republics must continue free to work out their 
several destinies, with due regard indeed to the self -deter- 
minable rights and interests of other peoples and to the 
mutually-determinable common rights and interests of all 
human beings, but otherwise each in their several ways; 

Second: To the effect that it is the judgment of the 
Convention that every road toward permanent peace will 
be closed, perhaps for centuries and certainly for a very 
long time, unless the Kaiser shall be defeated and the 
German people forced to accept an unprofitable peace; 

Third: To the effect that it is the judgment of the 
Convention that if peace be made on the basis of a com- 
plete or partial victory for the Kaiser it will be necessary 
for this nation and every other nation w^hich would main- 
tain its liberties to follow the example of Germany during 
the reign of the present Kaiser and devote all their ener- 
gies primarily to preparation for the next war; and 

Fourth: To the effect that it is the judgment of the 
Convention that the people of all religious faiths dwelling 
in the several church districts of the country should fortify 
their souls daily by following the example set for them by 
the people of Verbena, Alabama, as described in the en- 
closure. 

Abstention from a league to enforce peace resolution 
would, I think, add greatly to the weight and influence of 
the four resolutions which I have recommended as part 



of the league's tentative program for the Convention and 
would also add much to the league's prestige and future 
influence. I think that the resolutions ought not to say 
anything about a league to enforce peace because I be- 
lieve that the people of this country and of most other 
countries are now so far divided in opinion on that sub- 
ject that its specific discussion at this time would tend 
to divert the minds and feelings of the people and so im- 
pair their efficiency in prosecuting the war to a victorious 
end. 

It would be a mistake, I think, to declare or assume in 
the resolutions that any universal or general principle of 
governmental group determination exists or has been dis- 
covered. The assumption of such a principle, in the pres- 
ent imperfect state of knowledge, is an intellectual trap 
within which the Kaiser's advocates will surely have the 
best of the argument. Till the field of knowledge of not- 
physical or psychical truth shall have been considerably 
enlarged we must regard governmental group determina- 
tion as a question of the circumstances of each particular 
case, including the rights and interests of the human beings 
who are or are to be excluded from the particular group 
as well as the rights and interests of those who are or are 
to be included. 

Is not the great obstacle to world-wide and lasting peace 
the ignorance (1) of themselves and (2) of the present 
limits of their knowledge of psychical truth and (3) of 
efficient methods of enlarging hnoioledge of that sort of 
truth in which the philosophers, the theologians, the moral- 
ists, the jurists, the economists, the university teachers and 
other leaders of thought and opinion within the several 
peoples of the world are steeped and have in the past been 
steeped? Are not dissent and discord, suppressed and hid- 
den for a time in the written words of a contract, statute, 
constitution or treaty, apt to come violently to the surface 
as soon as the force which compelled the verbal agreement 



3 

ceases to work or diminishes in relative strength? Is it 
not the commonest of things to find conscientious men 
using the same words to express different, and sometimes 
diametrically different, meanings? — e.g., President Wilson 
and the German Chancellor in respect of the former's four 
propositions as the basis for a peace conference. A league 
to enforce peace! May not the Kaiser say that the phrase 
describes accurately the alliance of Germany, Austria, 
Bulgaria and Turkey? Win the war for permanent peace! 
May not the Kaiser say that the phrase describes accur- 
ately the purpose and aim of the German alliance? 

If, however, those who are active and influential in the 
league's organization have reason to believe that the Con- 
vention will give a partisan color to its proceedings like 
that given by Mr. Koosevelt to his recent address at the 
Maine Republican Convention, I beg you to consider this 
approval and suggestion as withdrawn and to let me say 
that in that contingency I shall be unwilling to coun- 
tenance the league's proceedings in any way. In saying 
this I am not speaking as in a party sense a Democrat, 
which I am not, although I voted for Mr. Wilson in 1916. 
From 1880 to 1908 I voted for the Republican National 
nominees. In 1912 I voted for the Progressive, Mr. Roose- 
velt. Having analyzed motives and possible subconscious 
psychical influences as carefully as I am able, I believe 
that I am speaking as a Yankee of unmixed descent from 
some of the first settlers of New England, who, seeking 
religious liberty for themselves, fled to the wilderness 
and there, erroneously confusing religion with theology, 
founded tyrannical theological states, but whose children 
and children's children, when they discovered the errors 
of the fathers, separated church from state and volun- 
tarily freed their slaves; I speak as one who in boyhood 
heard the Higher Law from the lips of Wendell Phillips, 
Charles Sumner, Julia Ward Howe and my mother, and 
whose adolescence was disciplined at a university which 



6 

once was the militant foe of moss-grown theological error 
and which, though no doubt laboring under the yoke of 
many unsuspected errors, still holds steadfastly to its faith 
in the prophecy of him who said Ye shall know the truth 
and the truth shall make you free; in short, I speak as a 
slavery abolitionist, including in slavery legalistic, eco- 
nomic, political and other mental serfs as well as human 
chattels. 

Yours very truly, 

S. B. ClARKE." 

III. 
Permanent peace, an illusory hope. 

The convention ought not to put forth the hope of 
permanent peace as a motive for winning the war. 

Why? 

First: Because the history of the world in general 
and of this country in particular shows that the hope is 
illusory. The winning of our revolutionary war did not 
give the people of this country permanent domestic or for- 
eign peace.. The winning of independence and the con- 
version of the dependent colonies into full sovereignty, 
democratic states did not do it. The league of those states 
under the Articles of Confederation did not do it. The 
closer union of the states under the Constitution did not 
do it. The winning of the civil war gave us a slightly 
ruffled peace of about fifty years' duration; but ominous 
thunder clouds of internal strife had begun to rise above 
the horizon before the Kaiser brought on the present 
world conflict and forced us, half awake and both psychic- 
ally and physically unjjrepared, into it. The obstacles of 
conflicting known interests and of conflicting subconscious 
stare decisis mental habits, in the way of permanent inter- 
national peace, are far greater than the obstacles in the 
way of domestic peace which have ever confronted the 



people of this country; are they not? No human being is 
competent to make a testamentary will which will cer- 
tainly have the effect of guaranteeing peace among his 
descendants for so much as one year after his death. No 
two human beings are competent to lay down for them- 
selves a plan of future conduct which will certainly guar- 
antee peace between themselves. No marriage of lovers 
will do it. What ground has anybody for believing that 
after victory in this war hundreds of millions of human 
beings will be able to come and keep together in such a 
close union of mind, heart and will as must exist if peace 
is to be permanent? Is it not certain that no substantial 
attempt to form a league of nations for permanent peace 
will be made? Is it not certain that whatever league may 
be made will contemplate and provide against the prob- 
ability of future wars and the necessity of fighting some 
of them through to their bitter ends? 

Secondly : Because the holding out of a hope known 
to be illusory would be dishonest deceit. 

Thirdly : Because the winning of the war by the force 
of an illusory hope of permanent peace would be apt to 
fill the uninstructed, simple-minded and credulous folk 
who constitute the great mass of the populations of this 
and other countries with a sense of security and a belief 
that they could let themselves go to sleep again. As in the 
past, they would be reluctant to subject themselves to the 
discipline and pains required for the integrated under- 
standing on which alone an integrated fixed will for peace 
can exist. There can be no permanent peace for us or 
for the world without an integrated will, steadfastly fixed 
on tliat objective, in the masses of human beings. There 
can be no integrated fixed will without an integrated un- 
derstanding of psychical truth in the masses of human 
beings. There can be no integrated understanding as the 
necessary basis of will without far-reaching discoveries 
and a great enlargement of the field of knowledge of that 



8 

sort of truth. Those who have little but their labor to 
sell, those who have savings to invest and those who must 
buy tangible commodities for the maintenance, cultivation 
and elevation of life must learn to recognize and thwart 
the Divide et Impera policy of the intellectual, social, 
economic, legalistic, political and militaristic autocrats 
who, openly or in disguise, infest all the peoples of the 
world. 

Fourthly: Because the winning of the war by the 
force of an illusory hope of permanent peace would, also, 
be apt to lull to sleep the philosophers, the theologians, 
the jurists, the moralists, the economists, the university 
teachers and other leaders of thought and opinion on whom 
the masses must rely for instruction. As in the past, all 
but a very few of them would rest content and self-satisfied 
in ignorance of themselves, in ignorance of the present 
limits of their knowledge of psychical truth and in ignor- 
ance of efficient methods of enlarging the field of knowl- 
edge of that sort of truth. 

You men and women of unimpeachable sincerity and 
conscientiousness who are the sponsors for the coming Phil- 
adelphia convention! Read over — I beg each one of you 
to read over the invitation and to ask yourself the ques- 
tions. What is the matter with me? and Do I know my- 
self? And then, if you still think it right to hold out the 
hope of permanent peace as a motive for winning the war, 
I beg you to ask yourself the additional questions, Is this 
the appropriate time for raising a great issue between 
myself and those who may continue to agree with me, on 
the one hand, and those who in all sincerity hold contrary 
opinions, on the other hand? and Is it not the duty of all 
of us at this time to discard differences and to adjust our 
conduct to the maxim Unite and Win? 



IV. 

The prayer. 

In 1861 the slave-holding people of Alabama, con- 
scientiously believing that their patriotic duty was deter- 
mined by the legal conception that the Federal Constitu- 
tion was a league of independent, full-sovereignty states, 
joined Virginia, South Carolina and the other seceding 
states and fought the civil war to the bitter end against 
those who, as conscientiously, believed that their patriotic 
duty was determined by the legal conception that the Con- 
stitution limited the sovereignty of the several states and 
effected an integration in one governmental group, with 
paramount but limited sovereignty, of the several govern- 
mental groups of people who inhabited the several states. 
At the end those Alabama people and their former slaves 
loyally accepted the decision by battle of the great 
unsettled constitutional question which theretofore had 
plagued the country for seventy-five years. Their oppo- 
nents, with like loyalty, reinstated them with the freedmen 
as one of the limited sovereignty states and as part of the 
paramount limited sovereignty nation. Today the grand- 
children of the slaves and the grandchildren of the civil 
war combatants, all wounds healed, all rancor forgotten, 
and the ^'more perfect union'' intended by the Constitution 
at last and, we may hope, forever accomplished, stand sol- 
idly together against the Kaiser. 

Verbena is one of Alabama's little villages. The fol- 
lowing (a few trivial verbal changes and transpositions 
excepted) is a description of what is going on there, which 
was published recently in a Birmingham, Alabama, news- 
paper by F. Woodruff; — 

"There's a little town about sixty miles south of Birm- 
ingham on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad called 
Verbena. The town is well named. It is redolent of the 



10 

old-fashioned Southern flower. It is peopled by simple 
farmer folk. Some substantial citizens of Montgomery 
keep Summer homes there. There are few sounds about 
the place. An occasional mule team rattles down a red 
clay road drawing an empty wagon to the general stores, 
or bumps pleasantly back toward the Chilton County hills. 
Occasionally a gentle wind causes the leaves of the oak 
trees that shade the town to sigh one of those sighs of con- 
tent that men breathe after a good meal or a good sermon 
or a well-rendered piece of music. It's as peaceful a place 
as can be found in Alabama or any other part of the world. 
It seems modelled after Goldsmith's 'Sweet Auburn.' 

There's a new sound there now. It is the Angelus of 
Strife. It calls the people of Verbena not only to wor- 
ship, but to deeds. Every afternoon at six o'clock the bell 
of the Verbena church rings. It continues to ring for two 
minutes, and while its brazen song is lifted the people of 
Verbena stand and pray. When the sound begins the ob- 
servance of its call is universal. Men halt in the street. 
Wagons are pulled up on the road. Women rise from 
their knitting or pause in their cookery — for they have 
early suppers in Verbena. The plowman halts his work 
and each repeats the prayer. Verbena calls it 'The Prayer 
of the Bell,' and it is said that men who have never been 
known to pray before, answer its call dutifully. With 
heads uncovered and bowed, each man, each woman, each 
child, each saint and each sinner repeat these words ; — 
'God bless our President, our Soldiers, our 
Nation, and guide them to victory.' " 

Pause and reflect on the full meaning of the prayer. 
God's blessing and guidance in his wonderful, mysterious 
ways! Our President, as constitutional commander-in- 
chief ! Our Soldiers, who are to offer their bodies for sac- 
rifice at his command ! Our freedom-loving, right-seeking, 
battle-unified Nation, as the backer of president and sol- 
diers! Victory of our civil war type! Suppression till 
victory of all hopes and utterances not serviceable to these ! 
Unite and win ! 



11 

V. 

Lexington Day; April 19, 1918. 

I submit; — 

First: That the Convention will do well if it shall 
emphasize, as motives for winning this war, hope of victory 
and fear of retrogression to lower and ever lower levels of 
human life — levels from which mankind may not rise again 
without enduring again the agonies of the uncounted wars 
which human beings have been forced to fight in the past ; 
and 

Secondly : That ways and means of progress to higher 
levels than any yet attained may well be left for considera- 
tion and determination after victory. 

Samuel B. Clarke. 



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